Brill was born in New York City and earned his medical degree at
New York University College in 1880. He completed his internship at the
Bellevue Hospital in 1881. In 1882 he was appointed physician at the Mount Sinai Hospital, later becoming professor at the
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Brill's medical accomplishments include: • The discovery of Brill-Zinsser disease, the recurrent mild typhus in immigrants from
Eastern Europe; Brill determined the disease to be a
latent infection after earlier contact with
lice or
ticks; • The coining (with
Frederick S. Mandlebaum) of the term
Gaucher's disease and Brill's recognition of it as a
lipid storage disease; • Description of a form of
lymphoma that became known as
Brill-Symmers disease. • The translation of
Clinical Diagnosis by
Georg Klemperer in 1898. == Brill-Zinsser Disease ==